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The Chinese Government were never going to welcome the news that Liu Xiaobo had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. No Government is likely to be enthusiastic about its own internal dissidents being honoured by the rest of the world. And those of us who live in so called liberal democracies should perhaps hesitate and look carefully at what we hold in our hands before hurling it at others. We may break our own glass house. I say "so called liberal democracies", because I doubt if our society is as liberal as we'd all like to think; and not everyone would say that what we have is in any strong sense, a democracy.

Nevertheless. I risk the surrounding glass houses as I hold in my hand at least one smooth rounded stone. (By the way amongst my favourite objects are stones which have been rounded by the lapidary patience of water – a metaphor for slow but transformative change?) That the award of a Peace prize should be described as obscene is one of those paradoxical statements which betray irreconcilable differences of perspective.  But then to talk of irreconcilable differences also calls in question the point of a Peace prize if conflicting ideologies are incapable of understanding, and even revision of thought. The Chinese Government has an entirely consistent record of putting the interests of the Party before the rights of its people. Liu Xiaobo was an activist during the Tiannemann Square protests, and has been in and out of prison since – currently serving 11 years for writing ideas contrary to those approved by the Government.

The West has little assumed moral superiority left. We have our own embarrassments, our own crimes against other parts of the world, our own problems of seeking a more just and humane society. People in glass houses…. But whether here or China, I refuse to have good called evil without rejoinder, or to have just protest silenced without protesting, and I want to describe as nonsense, literally and rhetorically, the notion that the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to an imprisoned activist whose chief weapon was a pen or keyboard, is in any sense an obscene act. Rewarding peacemaking  can never be anything other than transparently humane. That such an accusation could come from a Government which has the Tiannemann Square massacre in its recent history exposes the toxic political doublespeak that is the favoured discourse of those for whom human rights are cheaply negotiable. The statement is itself, an obscenity. 

With objections too numerous to enumerate, and with arguments too obvious to argue,  and for reasons to reasonable to rationalise, the following report of the financial activities of Manchester City FC are morally unacceptable. Not singling this Premier League English club out, (so I've shown Chelsea players – apparently one on £150,000 per week) just offering an example of ludicrous extravagance that is so morally compromised it is hard to get any ethical handle on it.  Please place the figures below ( the published audit figures popularised for public consumption) alongside the realities of poverty and struggle for individual people who are unemployed, chronically unwell, single parents, or low income families. And then recall the Amos vision of a just society, preceded throughout his prophecy by harsh questions to the extravagant grinders of the poor, and luxuriating mega-rich on their Bentley sofas – ok forgive the anachronism:

But let justice roll down like waters

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

 "The figures also show details of City's astonishing spending spree on players and salaries which have led to record losses of £121.3million. Although City's turnover increased by 40% to £125m this has been swamped by total salary costs of £133.3m, a £50m rise on a year ago.

The annual report also shows that the club's net spending on transfers has totalled a staggering £403m since 2008. City's net spending this summer was £96.6m – they actually spent around £126m but recouped £30m from the sale of Robinho and other players.

As of June 1 2009, £185.2m had been spent on transfers and this was followed by a further £145.4m in the following 12 months offset by sales totalling £24m.

The good news for City is that their turnover has also risen hugely, mainly due to a large increase in commercial income, from £87m to £125m."

Sometimes the politics of envy is a morally defensible position. I covet the money that pours Niagara-like into football -not for myself.

I wonder what difference it might make to a hundred families to have the equivalent of the cost for one of those famous celebrity / footballer parties?

Or the difference it would make to the hospice provision in this country if for a year ten footballers decided to take their £100,000 per week every second week and donate the alternating payment. Daft maths I know but we are talking daft maths anyway. The answer is £26,000,000 give or take.

I'm not blaming the footballers – I am asking about the ethical maturity of a culture that has no problem with such daft maths. And I'm not pointing the finger as if I stood outside all this nonsense – I am part of a society that has lost its sense of proprotion, that has mislaid its capacity to measure value, that long ago silenced its ethical klaxons where money is concerned, that lives in a cultural world where virtual fantasies about being mega-rich occlude the counter-experience of many for whom poverty and lost life-chances are not a virtual but a real nightmare. The published finances of a football club such as those quoted above are worth considering alongside the massive cuts about to affect many vulnerable people in our society.